Emmy Noether. Exceptional mathematician (Q6599504)

This booklet, designed following an exhibition organised by the Institut Henry Poincaré in its library in 2023, aims to introduce to the general public the prolific work of the pioneering female mathematician Emmy Noether. It traces the major moments in the life of this exceptional woman, from her birth on 23 March 1882 into a Jewish family in Erlangen, Bavaria, to her death from postoperative complications on 14 April 1935 in Pennsylvania, where she had recently taken up residence following the enactment by Hitler's government of a law excluding Jews from academic posts.\N\NThe beautiful visual style of the document and its accessible content have everything to appeal to the non-specialist reader who is interested either in mathematics or in its greatest historical figures. Each page is magnificently illustrated. The concise, uncluttered text is accompanied by photos of the Noether family, portraits of the men and women mentioned in the story, reproductions of works, extracts from correspondence accompanied by translations, and computer graphics.\N\NNumerous explanatory boxes tell us, as an aside, about the socio-political or historical context of Emmy Noether's life, or the key mathematical concepts or ideas at the heart of the mathematician's research interests. The professional mathematician will obviously find nothing of substance to sink his or her teeth into, but that is not the purpose of such a publication.\N\NNo presentation of the life and work of Emmy Noether would be complete without addressing the question of the place of women in mathematics. The booklet does not fail to expose the systemic obstacles with which pioneers such as Sophie Germain, Sofia Kovalevskaïa, Charlotte Angas Scott, Anna Pell Wheeler and Emmy Noether had to contend with courage and determination.\N\NThe final third of the book introduces us to some of the great algebraist's notable students and frequent visitors, as well as some of her close collaborators and friends, including the Soviet topologist Pavel Aleksandrov and the Viennese mathematician Olga Taussky-Todd.